Going to Berlin

No, I’m not talking about Senator Obama’s upcoming speech this afternoon. This is simply a plug for my study abroad course next summer, “The Berlin Wall in American Memory.” Brief course description:

This course explores a range of historical topics that have emerged in the twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Questions that this course will consider include: What has been the historical relationship and interdependency between the United States and Germany? What was the significance of the allies in first crushing fascism and then rebuilding West Germany with the Marshall Plan? How did the United States assist Berlin when the city was isolated by the Russian military in the late 1940s? How and why did the Berlin Wall go up? Why and how was it taken down? What signs of post-Cold War Europe are still visible in Berlin twenty years after unification? What was the role of American, German, and Soviet political leaders in helping to end the Cold War? What was the role of the mass media and the film industry in facilitating and documenting change? To answer these questions, this course will visit historically significant sites in Berlin and selected cities in the former East Germany.

Now, all this is tentative, given the weak dollar, outrageous airfares, and the fact that I’m competing with 37 other study abroad programs next year, including four or five others in history. Maybe using this video as advertising will give me an edge: